Always mixed, bittersweet feelings when handing in the last book in a sequence. Lots of things I could be doing next – some of which even include more writing – and always more ideas swirling around my increasingly age-addled noggin than I will possibly have time to implement.

Of course, the publishing industry has changed beyond recognition since I started writing my first Jackelian series work, The Court of the Air. Amazon has consolidated as the dominant force in print book sales, and even more so in e-book sales. Their mixture of continual innovation, ruthlessness, low prices and genius has left me breathless. Naturally, most of my own fiction reading is on the Kindle now. Having run out of physical book shelf space long ago – I reserve the dwindling free atoms of my house for graphic novels and art books; I discovered that colourful Judge Dredd compilations really suck on the Fire HD.

Amazon has, personally, proved a mixed blessing for the likes of me as an author. On one hand, they Prime – pun intended – the indie published pipeline that helps keep a mid-list hybrid author like myself in the game, which is greatly to love (as are their 70% royalties). I’m fairly sure without KDP, I wouldn’t be around – at least as a writer earning a living more or less full-time from fiction. On the other hand, Amazon – much like the big six, or what is it, four, legacy publishers, now – is a Godzilla-sized giant able to crush mere mortals on the turn of the wheel.

With trad books published by the likes of Gollancz (Hachette), HarperCollins, and Tor (Macmillian), I’ve gazed up in awe from the ruins of my paucity as the giants of the old and new world clash in just about every Trad versus Amazon holy war going. And as well as the cross-fire, of course, there’s always the general fuckwitery, friendly fire and self-inflicted wounds of the biz to keep times interesting.

Amazon hiding the buy button on The Stealers’ War print edition three levels deep. Making it so hard to buy, I couldn’t even find the new print book’s order button until I phoned my agent, thinking the Amazon database hadn’t been updated properly with the new book, and he had to tell me how to access it.

I used to be a GUI designer who still codes on the side. Either I’m inheriting my dad’s PC skills in my advanced decrepitude (What is this thing you call ‘scrolling the mouse?’), or Amazon are seriously trying to divert all legacy publisher print sales to their Kindle platform.

Okay, so here’s how to buy on Amazon the new print copy of The Stealers’ War, buried as deep as a nark’s grave in The Wire. First, go to the book’s product page. You’ll see this screen, below.

This shows the Kindle edition and the corresponding paperback. However, the paperback shown is the smaller size mass marked edition out in 2017. Not the newly released Mr Biggie (you know, the hardback-sized paperback which publishers love charging hardback prices for), which is the only print edition currently available now in 2016. You wouldn’t know I actually have a print edition you can buy looking at this page. Let’s put aside the rather ‘interesting’ (but depressingly normal) fact the e-book price is actually set dip-shit higher than the dead-tree edition (to quote the end of Apocalypse Now: “The horror. The horror.”).

That jumps you to the actual product page for the book just released, see screen (4) below. Congrats, you can now buy the large-size dead tree copy.

Buried deep on the 4th screen, even after you’ve gone to the trouble to actively search out the title using the Amazon search? Well. I think I can sum up my feelings about that in one handy, sophisticated info-graphic. Everyone loves info-graphics, right?

Much like in Aesop’s The Scorpion and the Frog fable, the giants and titans play, and you kind of know – even as you find yourself lying spread-eagled as collateral damage inside the house-sized footprint left by a monster – that the scorpion will always sting the frog. That’s just how scorpions roll.

2 Responses to “The Stealers’ War (Far-called book #3) is out now.”

I feel your pain. Yes, I’m the same person who sent you the picture of the Far-Called books in my new (old!) little turning antique bookshelf.

You already know I love the books: so I have one thing to say about them… PLEASE WRITE ANOTHER. There’s so many loose ends not tied up; I’m hoping that’s what you’re intending.

I’ll also fess up and say that because I am in the colonial antipodes, postage from the US & Amazon to my PO Box is extortionate. I stopped buying books from them years ago. I purchased every one of your books via the Book Depository. Yes, I know this once-UK owned entity has now been eaten my the Amazon-beast, but they post free to me. I was able to find exactly what I wanted on BD, zero hoops to leap through.

I guess I should mention that I am a trad pubbed spec fiction author whose books are a decade out of print. I took a loooong break from writing due a tragic life event that I won’t delve into, and returned to it last year. Yes, I have an agent happy to try and sell my latest work to Harper Collins et al (and if you think UK writers are screwed, try being an Aussie…), but I’m increasingly nervous about going totally trad and losing my ebook rights – and potential long tail, long term sales.

Like you, I’m really starting to think trad pub is not the way to go, but an afterthought. I’ve been experimenting in another genre with a throwaway pen name, publishing short ebook on Kindle with moderate success. Of course, this means I have to promote, promote, promote. Every cloud has a…umm… cloud-filled lining and there are some things on Amazon I refuse to participate in – like the Kindle Unlimited rort that pays authors by the number of pages READ and leaves the market wide open to internet marketing scammers creating -I kid you not!- 3000 page books.

Anyhow, if I’ll continue to promote your books to my friends and readers. I think writers are being screwed over, fucked over, at the moment by both ends of the spectrum. In the meantime, I’ll keep writing because it gives me meaning and purpose. And I have stories to tell that won’t leave me alone.